By Rebecca Bracken Welcome back to the Oystercatcher Diaries!  The past two weeks have been a busy time for us, so Sue stepped in to help out again.  Those oystercatchers just can’t get rid of her! In East Matagorda Bay, LF and M4 nest still hasn’t hatched.  I bet it hatched right after we left!  Both were on their island … Read More

By Rebecca Bracken Welcome back to the Oystercatcher Diaries!  This is the first entry for the 2024 season, and boy, it has been a busy one already.  Over the past month the research crew and volunteers have been out to West Galveston and East Matagorda Bays to find all our banded birds, and we’ve found quiet a few changes!  Read … Read More

By Susan Heath On Wednesday, Rebecca and I headed out to East Matagorda Bay with GCBO’s research intern Ben Torres and David Newstead from CBBEP. David came up to set up some game cameras on the skimmer colony at Old Gulf Cut. It’s a short run out there and David got the cameras set up pretty quickly. So quickly I … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Rebecca and I headed out to East Matagorda Bay with David Newstead (CBBEP), Diego Newstead (David’s son) and Trey Barron (TPWD) to put transmitters on the skimmers at the colony at Old Gulf Cut. While we were there, we checked on the only oystercatcher nest left in that bay, 25 & unbanded. They still had … Read More

By Susan Heath On Wednesday I headed out to the Brazoria Bays for what I hoped would be my last check of the season. While crossing West Galveston Bay to get to the mooring facility, I spotted a strange silhouette on one of the channel markers. As I got closer I saw there was more than one strange silhouette. Brown … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday I headed out to East Matagorda Bay with Heather Lewis, one of our new volunteers. Heather is an instructor at Alvin Community College but back in the day, she did her masters degree on Black Skimmers! Very nice to have another Black Skimmer enthusiast among us! We haven’t seen any skimmers in East Matagorda Bay … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday I headed out to the Brazoria Bays to check on the pairs there. My volunteers fell through again so I went by myself. It’s kind of fun to be out there alone! It reminds me of the scene in On Golden Pond when the kid takes the boat out by himself for the first time. … Read More

By Susan Heath I had to move my Tuesday trip to East Matagorda Bay to Friday because of all the rain. On Thursday, I headed out to West Galveston Bay with Alan Wilde and Trey Barron (TPWD Wildlife Diversity Biologist). The wind was supposed to die down as the day went on so I decided to save Swan Lake for … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor B, Taylor S and I headed out to check the birds in the Brazoria Bays. We went to the west end of West Galveston Bay first. The chick at the mooring facility was due to fledge. We found F1A (the male) standing alone in much the same place as he had been the last … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor, Taylor and I headed out to East Matagorda Bay. The wind was strong out of the east so we headed down the GIWW from Matagorda all the way to Chinquapin and checked on F8A & unbanded. The tide was higher then I’ve seen it out there this year and they were standing on a … Read More

By Susan Heath On Tuesday, Taylor Bennett, Taylor Snyder, Elena Duran and I headed out to check on the birds in the Brazoria Bays. We went to the west end of West Galveston Bay first to check the pair at the mooring facility. When we first arrived, we didn’t see any oystercatchers and I was afraid the nest had failed … Read More